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The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms “MADA” called upon the owners of the 49 sites that have been blocked to contact the Internet service providers in order to unblock their websites. It is worth mentioning that Ramallah Magistrate Court issued a decision to block 49 sites (the decision originally included 59 sites but 10 of these sites were repeated) for 6 months, which has ended and it was not renewed by a new judicial decision. Therefore, the principle is to return to the Basic Law, which guarantees freedom of expression in Article 19 thereof. Moreover, the internet providers may not violate the decision to keep the blocking longer than the period stated in the judicial decision.

The aforementioned decision had caused wide reactions calling for the decision to be annulled by civil society institutions, journalists and activists. It should be mentioned that “MADA” Center organized a press conference after the decision was issued in cooperation with a number of CSOs institutions, coalitions and Watan TV (https://www.madacenter.org/en/article/1260/).

“MADA” Center reaffirms the need to respect freedom of expression in Palestine and calls on the government that opposed the decision (Pursuant to the decision of the Palestinian Magistrate Court to block these sites, which the government required the competent authorities to review the decision according to the legal procedures that must be followed and sequenced, according to the statement of the government spokesman, Ibrahim Melhem) to amend the Cybercrime law after the end of the emergency period, which we hope will end the epidemic so that it will not be renewed, wishing all health and wellness and Ramadan Mubarak.